Wolfe Tone

Theobald Wolfe Tone (20 June 1763-19 November 1798) was an Irish revolutionary who co-founded the United Irishmen and was one of the leaders of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Biography
Theobald Wolfe Tone was born in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland on 20 June 1763 to a family of patrilineal Huguenot ancestry and matrilineal Irish Catholic heritage; Tone was raised in the Church of Ireland. He became a lawyer in 1789, and, in September 1791, under the pseudonym "A Northern Whig", he published an essay which stressed the need for cooperation between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. A month later, he co-founded the United Irishmen society to advocate for Irish republicanism, and, in 1796, he and Lord Edward FitzGerald visited Paris to meet with French revolutionary officials and enlist the aid of the French Republic in liberating Ireland; a trip to the United States was less productive, and he came to see George Washington as a "high-flying aristocrat". When the British began a second crackdown against the United Irishmen in 1798, Tone was forced to hasten plans fro a revolution, launching the Irish Rebellion of 1798. In October 1798, he attempted to land in Donegal with a large French army, but he was captured by the British Royal Navy at the Battle of Tory Island on 12 October. On 10 November, he was sentenced to death, but, on 19 November, he died under mysterious circumstances; he either slit his own throat in an act of suicide, or he was tortured to death by his British captors.